On Briefly Believing I Was a Korean Celebrity

After a tour of the city, I took the Seoul subway to a neighborhood called Itaewon.  The only confusing thing  about the subway is that when you're done with your ticket, you can get a 500-won rebate.  Why they don't just take 500-won off the original price, I don't know.  And before you get too excited and plan to retire on all those 500-won rebates you can earn, you should know that 500-won is about 50 cents.  I'm sure almost all of you reading this are thus Korean millionaires.

Anyway, Itaewon is known for its proliferation of non-Korean restaurants, and it tends to draw an international, or at least American, crowd.  Now, before you mutter with disapproval at my seeking out a Western haven in Seoul, know that after days of faithfully eating local cuisine, I just craved a cheeseburger.  This is Korea, though.  So they even managed to make my cheeseburger spicy.

On my way to dinner, I was stopped by two teenage boys.  One began reading off a script about how he was a high school student, etc., etc.  I was about to tell him that, no, I was not interested in buying chocolate bars to fund his school field trip, but he said he was studying English and as part of an assignment, he was to interview an English speaker.  This probably explained why he was in Itaewon.  Everywhere else I went in Seoul, I was maybe the one Caucasian out of 200.  In Itaewon, though, it was more like one Caucasian for every 8.  After he asked to interview me, I responded that it was a good thing that I spoke English.  Apparently, my humor is a bit too subtle for the high school-level English classes of Seoul.

At the end of the interview, he asked me to pose for a photo (I assume to prove to his teacher that I was not a figment of his imagination).  While his friend was taking several photos, there were two teenage girls looking on and whispering to themselves.  After I said good-bye to the guys, they followed me and after about 5 seconds stopped me.  Honestly, and as stupid as it now sounds, my first thought was that they thought I was some celebrity being stopped for a photo. I was all ready to explain that, no, I am not Edward Norton, when it turned out they wanted to interview me as well.  This is apparently a common teaching technique in Seoul, because they told me they weren't in class with the guys I met.  In any event, I was happy to oblige with all interview requests, even as a random American.  The student's assignment was to videotape a discussion of hobbies.  I talked about playing the piano.  She talked about taking pictures of food and posting them to Facebook and Instagram.  Kids these days.